Highest Research Award Given to Creators of Hemlibra

When the subcutaneous injectable medication Hemlibra first hit the market in 2017 it was heralded as a game changer for the hemophilia A community. Now in 2026 the three doctors who brought the drug to life are being celebrated for their work with one of the medical research profession’s highest honors.

The Lasker Foundation of New York awarded the 2026 Lasker–DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award to Kunihiro Hattori, Tomoyuki Igawa, and Takehisa Kitazawa in a private ceremony on Sept. 17 in Manhattan. The award, given for “a major advance that improves the lives of many thousands of people,” also included an honorarium of $100,000 for each recipient.

According to the foundation, the award was given to the trio for “invention of a bispecific antibody that joins blood clotting factors IX and X, restoring deficient factor VIII activity in hemophilia A and preventing severe bleeding in this genetic disorder.”

While working at Japan’s Chugai Pharmaceuticals in 2000, Hattori watched the way factor VIII attached to enzymes and brought factors IX and X together during the clotting cascade. From there Hattori surmised there should be a way to substitute factor VIII in the process. He spent the next decade-plus working with Igawa and Kitazawa on tests and trials before their drug, Emicizumab, known commercially as Hemlibra, was made available to hemophilia A patients worldwide.

Since then about than 30,000 patients worldwide have used the injection, some on a once-monthly basis, to control their bleeding. Emily Kopenitz, a Midland, Texas-based Mother of two boys with hemophilia, says the decision to put her sons on the medication has felt natural.

“Hemlibra has given us a sense of normalcy that we weren’t sure was possible when we first learned our boys had hemophilia. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by their treatment, we have been able to make it a manageable part of our everyday lives. Most importantly, it has allowed us to focus less on what hemophilia might keep the boys from doing and more on simply letting them be kids.”

Hemlibra is distributed in the United States by Genentech.